The present invention, in some embodiments thereof, relates to three-dimensional printing and, more particularly, but not exclusively, to rotational three-dimensional printing.
Additive manufacturing (AM) is generally a process in which a three-dimensional (3D) object is manufactured utilizing a computer model of the objects. Such a process is used in various fields, such as design related fields for purposes of visualization, demonstration and mechanical prototyping, as well as for rapid manufacturing.
The basic operation of any additive manufacturing system consists of slicing a three-dimensional computer model into thin cross sections, translating the result into two-dimensional position data and feeding the data to control equipment which manufacture a three-dimensional structure in a layerwise manner.
Additive manufacturing entails many different approaches to the method of fabrication, including three-dimensional printing, e.g., three-dimensional inkjet printing, laminated object manufacturing, fused deposition modeling and others.
In three-dimensional printing processes, for example, a building material is dispensed from a dispensing head having a set of nozzles to deposit layers on a supporting structure. Depending on the building material, the layers may then be cured or solidified using a suitable device. The building material may include modeling material, which forms the object, and support material, which supports the object as it is being built. Various three-dimensional printing techniques exist and are disclosed in, e.g., U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,259,962, 6,569,373, 6,658,314, 6,850,334, 7,183,335, 7,209,797, 7,225,045, 7,300,619, 7,364,686, 7,500,846, 7,658,976, 7,962,237, and 9,031,680, and U.S. Published Application No. US 20130040091, all of the same Assignee, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 9,031,680 discloses a system which comprises an additive manufacturing apparatus having a plurality of dispensing heads, a building material supply apparatus configured to supply a plurality of building materials to the fabrication apparatus, and a controller configured for controlling the fabrication and supply apparatus. The system has several operation modes. In one mode, all dispensing heads operate during a single building scan cycle of the fabrication apparatus. In another mode, one or more of the dispensing heads is not operative during a single building scan cycle or part thereof.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,291,002 discloses apparatus for fabricating a three-dimensional object. A rotary annular build drum receives successive layers of a powder build material, and a print head is disposed above the annular build drum and is configured for selectively dispensing droplets of a liquid binder onto the powder.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,172,562 discloses apparatus for manufacturing a three-dimensional object. This apparatus includes a building container, a support in the building container, and a stationary material application device that applies layers of a building material onto the support. A drive generates a movement of the container around an axis of rotation, and a vertical drive generates a vertical movement of the support.
U.S. Published Application No. 20080109102 discloses apparatus for manufacturing three dimensional items. The apparatus of this disclosure includes a computer controller, a build platform for carrying an item under manufacture, and a build station for forming upon the item a layer of material. Either of the build station and the build platform is mounted and driven such as to rotate about an axis, so that the surface of the item under manufacture is repeatedly presented to the build station.